THIRST


Oh hollow Thirst!  

How it drowns life's liquid scenes,

All trenchant memory now

dries the tongue;

When recollection swims with dire aches

In the stomach lingering

Deserts  

once oasis-providence:

              the ease of us

              sifting with the sand

Minutes limpid between caress

Creation our chalice overflows

Quenching in and each other

Love for water

As the hours go touching vastness'

That open us / our heaven's sky :

Illuminating in you

Both assuage and succor...

          But I am drought and man

          Flesh heavy / crawling through

         War's searing hills

         Chafed of what made me fearless . . .

         A Traveler discarding haste,

Still Thirsty for those palm trees’ shading moments

Still just pictures of bodies felt

and yet still feeling.


It is as though an affliction’s game

To wait

Between search and weaning

No swift elixir

I am just a bare tree leaning

praying for love's rain...


This Thirst is deeper than remembering

The drink that once was Us.


.  .  .  .

HUNGER

Halcyon: bathing in your adoration,

Nothing so sinful, or miniscule, as to need

Redemptive rinses and the spirit

When we were

As what we only knew how to be

Ourselves yet together sharing feasts


Which we lay out for each other

Ceremonious only through having its discovery

Knowing to trust in this (which is between us)

Oh How to feed the hunger I have longed for

Softer than the dew on skin

When we have the outdoors with our mischief

Attentive as the grass when we look within…



These eyes that pierce me now

Understanding / how my breath shivers

With the slight tips of tender fingers

Through a body famished and weakened,

Needing

The food from in between kiss and spark

On a smile that shares heaven’s glee

In each other’s sensations, feeling the answer

Rather than being told to eat



Reverie of wines tasted, the lifting of all things

To a memory, yet not having the full course

Of dining with serenity, finding that destiny

Has yet to begin

When love was the race I was questioning

Kind supposedly human

And dreams came true with happy endings?



Hunger can make the world seem cruel

When we give up on searching for meaning

We ourselves make

The feast from meals

with our believing …